A couple of months ago, media publishing company Tronc announced its plans to buy the Chicago Sun-Times from the Wrapports. This announcement in the middle of May led the antitrust division of the DOJ to request the Wrapports to announce their intentions, allowing for other bidders to step forward. And last week, an investment group fronted by former Chicago alderman Edwin Eisendrath, and labor unions banded together to fend off the Tronc bid.
Eisendrath said he didn’t yet have permission to identify all the members of his investment group. Besides Eisendrath, it includes corporate restructuring expert William Brandt, the Chicago Federation of Labor, other local labor unions and about a half-dozen other individuals.
[...]
Terms of the sale weren’t disclosed. But a source involved in the transaction said the purchase price of Sun-Times parent Wrapports LLC totaled only $1.
The Eisendrath group, called ST Acquisition Holdings LLC, won over the U.S. Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division — which is responsible for investigating newspaper mergers and oversaw the sale — by securing more than $11.2 million in operating funds to bankroll the company for an undisclosed period.
This is good news as Tronc Inc. already owns:
- Los Angeles Times (Los Angeles, California)
- Chicago Tribune (Chicago, Illinois)
- San Diego Union-Tribune (San Diego, California)
- The Capital (Annapolis, Maryland)
- Baltimore Sun (Baltimore, Maryland)
- Sun-Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale, Florida)
- Orlando Sentinel (Orlando, Florida)
The more voices the better.